Combat - why is it currently considered weak ?

Izaak wrote:

On a different note, oh look my karma went down again. How interesting....

Oh so you DO care!

Ha ha. No I don't. That was just me being sarcastic since you made such a big deal of it last time around! B)

I just find the karma thing "amusing" if relatively pointless.

Unrelated: If you'd ask me they should just get rid of this entire karma crap because it means exactly zip.

Ah, looks like we finally have some common ground! Something we can agree on. I think the "karma" feature is pretty meaningless and isn't particularly useful.

You click the - because you don't like me. I click the - every time I see someone make a post that is complete nonsense and/or has nothing to do with competitive V:TES. You happened to make a lot of those lately.

From your perspective. And I could say that you simply don't like me, and that you have lately been making lots of posts that have nothing to do with competitive VTES. It's all in the eye of the beholder. So I think it's better if we just agree to disagree.

Get into combat with your prey from bleeding (cardlessly if needed) rather than wasting an action to block him.

I'll assume block needs to be rush here, but really... people block those bleeds for 1 or 2 where you play? Really? That must be amazing!

Yes, that does happen.

Or you can get a Camera Phone and keep bleeding for 2. Or you can get a Raven Spy and block *him*.

a) Animalism is good combat UNTIL you run into 1) prevent 2) S:CE 3) other combat. Since none of these see a lot of play in today's meta, Animalism rocks.

Depends on the prevention. And depends on the other combat. Looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree here.

b) Celerity beats Animalism 99% of the time. The 1% is the game where the stars align and you packed EXACTLY the right mix of DotB and TF and Bats/Crows to win against a specific mix of Celerity. Oh and draw into them as well.

Animalism can cycle DotB, Terror Frenzy, Carrion Crows, and then Aid from Bats all pretty well. Celerity often has to have "EXACTLY the right mix" of maneuvers, presses, and additional strikes or you end up with a hand full of cards that you can't cycle. Plenty of decks often have to cycle Flashes (go to long, wave, press, repeat). Terror Frenzy *really* hoses Celerity because most of their combat cards aren't pre-range, so now either they can't maneuver to close or they are paying an extra blood for every card.

c) Thaumaturgy without Walk of Flame breaks even for a few rounds and then loses out. Incidentally, this is exactly what I wrote but for some reason you feel like contradicting it and then start telling it works like that.

I agree that Thaumaturgy without Walk of Flame definitely loses out to Animalism.

If it packs any significant amount of Walk of Flame say goodbye to Animalism.

Even with Walk of Flame, the sheer amount of damage you'll be taking makes it a rather pyrrhic victory, if it's really a victory at all.

d) Running into S:CE as Animalism is ALWAYS bad. You can think up 26 more scenario's and wrap it in pink if you want, but it's bad 100% of the time. Like, ya know, it's 100% of the time bad when someone Delays your vote and that at least untaps your guy.

Not 100%. Not if you're using Mind of the Wilds and the fact that the other guy is handjammed on S:CE which is useless against Mind of the Wilds.

Someone delaying your vote is definitely not 100% bad. Could be that your prey is forgetful and didn't realize that your acting minion (who he just untapped) is Johannes Castelein and he just ousted himself from the 2 pool loss. Could be that a cross-table ally played Delaying Tactics to help you out, either letting you cycle a card, or to counteract a potential Elder Kindred Network or Malkavian Rider Clause scenario (possibly with Kindred Coercion). Maybe you faked out your prey because he wasted his last blood on Delaying Tactics (instead of keeping it for his Deflection) and now you can bleed him out (but a KRC wouldn't have been enough to oust him). These scenarios are certainly corner-case, but it definitely shows that your 100% figure is wrong.

e) The main selling point of Hidden Strength is that it can be free, cycles easy, and denies any rushers the Taste of Vitae *and* comes with a press against Traps, Nephandi, Grapple and that Abombwe card popularized by Brian Morris.

It is a good card. I do think it's questionable whether it is one of the "best" Fortitude cards though. I've also seen plenty of Hidden Strength decks get handjammed with it if they're not taking damage, and wishing they were playing Indomitability instead (for just a press).

Then the bonus-effect is that it shits on animalism and shuts down silly aggropoke.

The press certainly helps against Aid from Bats. But you're still likely down on blood against Crows.

It's easily the best prevent card.

It's a good card. But the best?

I'd say Flesh of Marble is a more likely candidate for "best prevent card." And if you limit it to Fortitude, Rolling with the Punches is easily the more popular choice.

Indomitability should have read Armor of Vitality (which prevents 3 at inferior fortitude). I confused the cards.

Armor of Vitality is useful. I wouldn't consider it among the "best." And it doesn't seem that popular either.

I'd assume, that someone who played for as long as you have should know all this, but apparently there is some sort of subset of experienced VTES players that do not understand basic fundamentals like this.

I'll take the high road and not stoop to your level of personal attacks.

If you want to argue for the sake of it, feel free but then just tell me so I don't feel the need to waste my time responding to that nonsense.

And I could say the same about you. Do you simply like to argue for the sake of it? It just seems like we are both very opinionated, it's just that we disagree on several things. I don't know why you're making all this personal.

Your name being yellow doesn't mean you're right.

Did I ever say it does? In fact, I've never mentioned or invoked my moderator status. (Even then, moderators, VEKN officers, and even the rules monger can make mistakes and can be wrong, so I don't really see the point in this issue). You're the only one who seems to be making a deal out of names in yellow.

In this case, like in the TWDA thread, you're just dead wrong.

You certainly have the right to believe in that. I, obviously disagree with that assertion. You know, running around saying "you're just dead wrong" doesn't really strengthen your arguments.

bakija wrote:

I dunno--there are certainly worse strategies to follow, but they tend to be very fringey.

Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Combat as a strategy in and of itself, is difficult to win with. Combat as an adjunct to another basic strategy can be perfectly reasonable...

But this is kind of my whole point. Combat sucks! It doesn't directly contribute to ousting. *EVERY* pool damage that is done via combat requires a card that is not a combat card to make it happen. Even Hell-for-Leather requires some card to get INTO combat.

Potence can relatively easily get a payload either through Presence or Dominate (or Computer Hacking) already. The payload isn't the issue. It is the deck around the payload.

Potence is not a good delivery system. It is a threat, and a decent one, but it is easily countered. Just don't block. Let them jam on red cards. If you're playing rush combat, you're weakening your position by packing rush actions to begin with. Time is never on your side with rush combat.

There is plenty of payload available...combined with Fame, Tension, Dargonboned...The issue is that the more payload you have, the less consistent your combat is and the less consistent your combat is, the more likely you are to go off the rails.

Exactly. I know you know all the drawbacks better than most. I think Brutal Influence was a horribly missed opportunity. If the superior version was usable without an Orun, it'd be a good card. I'm personally pretty disappointed with any of the laibon cards which require both disciplines and either sect or aye/orun.

But all that is beside the point. Combat is not a payload. Combat is not a delivery system. Combat is incidental to the game. It just plain sucks.

If the combat disciplines actually had decent actions associated with them, you'd see more people try to use those disciplines because they can actually *DO SOMETHING USEFUL OUTSIDE OF COMBAT*. Horseshoes was a step in the right direction, though it doesn't affect pol. More still needs to be done.

echiang wrote:

Bleed or vote simply results in pool loss. The combat example results in pool loss plus the *significant result* that someone's vampire is in torpor. That's a major difference, and partly explains why you need more combat cards for the same pool damage.

Combat only results in pool loss in conjunction with another card. This is a problem for combat. The fact that the result of torporing a vampire is significant has little to do with how card intensive it is. It has much more to do with the fact that damage prevention is much more card efficient than damage dealing. It also has a lot to do with the basic cardless hunt and rescue actions being at 1 stealth, and that cross-table allies exist for most of the game.

Oftentimes, if a combat deck is the only combat at the table, they can actually control the table (it's just a matter of allying with one or two players to prevent the whole table from going at you).

No one wants to go head to head with a combat deck in the two-player game. That is generally their ONLY time to shine and part of the reason they do get lots of table hate. If you gear your crypt toward combat, it is geared away from both Bleed and Political defense, except in the case of EuroBrujah.

echiang wrote:

Izaak wrote:

d) Running into S:CE as Animalism is ALWAYS bad.

Not 100%. Not if you're using Mind of the Wilds and the fact that the other guy is handjammed on S:CE which is useless against Mind of the Wilds.

Mind of the Wilds
Action Modifier, Animalism & Auspex
[ani][aus] If this action is blocked, this vampire gets an optional maneuver in the first round of the resulting combat, and the blocking minion cannot strike to end combat.
[ANI][AUS] As above, with +1 stealth.


I don't think that MotW helps against S:CE often because a deck playing Combat Ends won't block your minions. Even if you bleed for two I'd let your minion pass because that is better than hit the torpor. I think that card would sit uselessly at your hand and so I wouldn't add it at all to an ani-deck.

Jeff wrote:

Exactly. I know you know all the drawbacks better than most. I think Brutal Influence was a horribly missed opportunity. If the superior version was usable without an Orun, it'd be a good card.

I believe it would not solve any problem of combat and only add a copy of Govern to Potence player. If Govern is considered to be mandatory to every discipline, just remove the discipline requirement !

Jeff wrote:

But all that is beside the point. Combat is not a payload. Combat is not a delivery system. Combat is incidental to the game. It just plain sucks.

It could be a delivery system, and was more or less thought as such (after all, nothing will prevent your payload if every body is dead). But it's too slow to work on most game, and too radical when it does work.

Half of the problem reported with Tupdog was that it shutdown player completely. That's why we can't add too much payload to combat : it would come all the way from sucky to unstoppable.

Rather, I think it should be given more way to give quickly a small edge, in a delivery manner, and be careful that avoiding making vampire too vulnerable to combat.

Ohlmann wrote:

I believe it would not solve any problem of combat and only add a copy of Govern to Potence player. If Govern is considered to be mandatory to every discipline, just remove the discipline requirement !

Certainly we don't want everything to be the same in VTES. My main point is that "combat disciplines" are weak because they focus on combat, which is the least useful aspect of the game. If the combat disciplines had better things to do outside of combat, then they would become stronger. Making one discipline the best combat discipline ever still leaves them the king of a very small hill.

It could be a delivery system, and was more or less thought as such (after all, nothing will prevent your payload if every body is dead)...

...

Rather, I think it should be given more way to give quickly a small edge, in a delivery manner, and be careful that avoiding making vampire too vulnerable to combat.

IMO, thinking of combat as a delivery system is a bad model. To me, not having read the player's guide, delivery means stealth (Lost in Crowds), block denial (Call of the Hungry Dead), or block pre-emption (Seduction). It's a method of pushing your actions through to make sure they have a chance to succeed.

Combat is "incidental" meaning that it only happens when minions fight...when restraint (intercept) overcomes delivery...or when a rush action is successful. It doesn't impact a methuselah's pool (blood on vampires is *not* pool) except indirectly from Fame, Tension, etc.